The eye, like other parts of the central nervous system, has limited regeneration capability. Thus, many ocular diseases and injuries such as retinal photic injury, retinal ischemia-reperfusion induced eye injury, chronic intermittent hypoxia related eye injury, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and free-radical-mediated diseases are difficult to treat. AMD affects as many as 15 million Americans, with 200,000 new cases each year. Of these, approximately 10-15% further develop exudative disease. Intravitreal anti-VEGF injection (IVAV) has revolutionized the treatment of exudative AMD. While AMD was the first, and is still the most common, indication for intravitreal anti-VEGF injections, additional approved indications include central and branch retinal vein occlusion-related macular edema as well diabetic macular edema. These agents may also be used to diminish the effects of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhage, neovascular glaucoma, retinopathy of prematurity, choroidal neovascularization and many other retinovascular diseases. However, IVAV treatment exposes subjects to risk for optic nerve injury and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) loss caused by several mechanisms including decreased neuroprotection (Chauhan et al., Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2002, 43:2969-76; Weinreb and Khaw, Lancet 2004, 363:1711-1720; Michelson et al., Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 1998, 236:80-5; Bonomi et al., Ophthalmology, 2000, 107:1287-93; Kaur et al., ClinOphthalmol. 2008, 2:879-89; Moore D et al., Clin Ophthalmol, 2008, 2:849-61; Leung et al., Br J Ophthalmol, 2009, 93:964-8; Nishijima et al., Am J Pathol, 2007, 171:53-67) and transient ischemia-reperfusion injury. The latter results cumulatively in multiple brief episodes of tissue hypoxia similar to those which occur as a result of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) another cause of RNFL loss. Further, an IVAV treatment regimen generally consists of multiple IVAV injections leading to an increase in cumulative risk for RNFL thinning or loss, as well as other risks such as endophthalmitis, intraocular inflammation, hemorrhage, retinal tear or detachment, retinal vascular occlusion, blindness (Falavarjani et al., Eye, 2013, 27:787-94) and an increase in financial cost. Therefore, there is a need in the art for methods of protecting subjects undergoing VEGF treatments such as IVAV from secondary injury, as well as methods for reducing the total number of IVAV injections required for an effective IVAV treatment regimen. The current invention satisfies this need.